As two dozen members of Jamaica’s military and police forces prepare to arrive in Port-au-Prince on Thursday to begin their country’s participation in an armed security mission in Haiti, the international community is reiterating the call for a surge in assistance to the non-United Nations security mission.
Benin, Ivory Coast and Ghana are some of the countries involved as AFRICOM begins to “reset and recalibrate some of our assets,” AFRICOM commander Michael Langley said.
The Kenya-led police force mission in Haiti remains well below its envisioned 2,500 personnel, seriously underfunded and has yet to make a major impact against armed gangs.
The massive typhoon that churned ashore in southern Japan became a tropical storm by Friday but didn’t move far from its beachhead.
The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have been making efforts to halt fighting between Sudan’s army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, with little progress. The conflict has displaced more than a million and triggered ethnically driven massacres in Sudan’s Darfur region.
A Navy proposal to put more than a dozen support ships out of service to ease a crippling shortage of qualified civilian mariners could damage U.S. efforts to counter its competitors in Africa and the Middle East, naval analysts say.
Egypt delivered arms to Somalia and will help train the country’s troops, a Somali official said, potentially intensifying tensions in the Horn of Africa nation that’s scrambling to impose control over a breakaway region.
Elections scheduled for 2015 were postponed due to the 2013 conflict, which destabilized the country, leading to widespread displacement. South Sudan has not held elections since its 2011 secession from Sudan, which is currently undergoing a civil war.
Mediators were left frustrated by the army’s demands to be recognized as Sudan’s official government. The Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, which has been fighting the military since April last year, did send representatives to the talks.
The World Food Programme said the amount of aid being blocked by floods is enough for at least 500,000 people.